


Different Similarities

by Aurya



Category: Dissidia Final Fantasy
Genre: Gen, Major spoilers for Lightning Saga, Major spoilers for XV, Riffing on XV's ex-FNC state
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-07 01:25:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15898083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurya/pseuds/Aurya
Summary: The new conflict between Materia and Spiritus has its fair share of similarities to that of their predecessors, but one thing remains definitively different: their champions retain their memories, both from the worlds they hail from and from past stages of the clash.As the battles wage, combatants weave in and out of partnerships, allying with different champions as interests align. At one point, the Flash and the Heir find themselves fighting together... and they notice different similarities in their memories.





	Different Similarities

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even going to pretend I have an excuse for my lack of activity. Draco was back at hardballing his novelizations, and I just kinda got into being his mission control to stop him from sidetracking. Then he started playing FFXV, and as soon as I realized how badly Square Enix was playing to their yaoi fandom I said "Have fun" and left. I mean, I'm 90% sure that none of the party is strictly homosexual (Noctis and Prompto are bisexual at most, and Noctis is decisively faithful to Lunafreya), so the fact that they're messing with part of their fandom like that is downright disgraceful. And it IS messing with, because all of that is just them making fun of each other. In the meantime, I've been trying AND FAILING to play TWEWY again (hope that'll change when the Final Remix comes out), gotten my ass kicked in an effort to play Final Fantasy III, and playing Theatrhythm when I get frustrated.
> 
> Which means I'm not in a Zelda mood to continue with Breath of Wilderness, so I'm gonna fire this off instead.
> 
> "Hashtag sorry not sorry".
> 
> ...Okay, I can't pretend I've stayed totally clear. Draco's on his -third- trip through the game. He got the Royal Edition, which turned out to be a XV disc and a download code for the Season Pass and Royal Pack. He's played it once through Version 1.00, once after downloading the most recent update and all of the DLC -except- the Royal Pack (and the multiplayer expansion because he is NOT an online multiplayer kind of guy), and is currently playing through the Royal Edition (and is currently contemplating -uninstalling- everything, downloading everything -but- the Royal Pack (again), and playing through the game with the Regalia Type-D). I mean, I love the guy, but how much are you really getting out of this?
> 
> End result is, I quickly learned that Square is only playing to the yaoi fans during the more peaceful zones of the game, so I started paying attention when things got serious (read: when Draco stopped doing sidequests). So I know most of the story and lore first-hand (watching a playthrough counts as firsthand). And I'm an avid XIII fan, so I've played through the entire Lightning Saga.
> 
> Bottom line: it is blatantly clear that XV was formerly a Fabula Nova Crystallis game even without getting the translation for Somnus, and I'm gonna be the bitch who points that out.
> 
> "Hashtag sorry not sorry"
> 
> Noctis has no beard in Dissidia NT, which means he got into the conflict before his crystal stasis. I know he was riding the Regalia in that first scene, but for the sake of him knowing enough for this thing to work, I'm going to say he was pulled out of Eos sometime between speaking with Shiva and getting stopped in the Gralea tunnel. Let's assume not getting to drive the Reaglia means he likes to go sit there and listen to the Lucian Cruisin' Collection while the train's driving. And that he tried to go to Angelgard sometime after Cid gave him the keys to the boat.

"You mean your entire city revolved around a crystal?"

Lightning and Noctis had ended up travelling together as they fought under Materia's banner. With the world of the conflict still quite barren, conversation had proven the most effective method of passing time as they journeyed between gates - and their homelands had proven the most amicable topic of conversation. Noctis had spoken about the reason for the journey in which he had travelled back home.

"That's... an oversimplification," Noct observed, in response to Light's query, "but... not totally wrong." Then, when her expression became pensive, he asked, "You mean you had something like that back home?"

"Sort of," Light confirmed. "Powerful creatures with hearts of crystal shaped everything about the world of Cocoon. The body of one of them was an entire city."

Noct didn't think that was totally plausible. "A creature with a heart of crystal?"

Light remembered what she knew about the fal'Cie, and how Pulse and Lindzei had made them. "Well, they're not exactly natural beings," she admitted. "They're divine servants. The crystal heart is a sort of... gift from the maker."

"A crystal given from the gods," Noct observed, recalling how the crystal of Eos was a gift from the Hexatheon.

"Gods, plural," Light caught.

"Yeah."

They walked without speaking for a moment, both contemplative.

Lightning was the one who broke it. "Did... did one of those gods give humanity a gift?" Her mind was on Etro, on the chaos that formed human spirit. "That sort of... shapes humanity as a whole?"

"Yeah," Noctis confirmed. Shiva had told him about Ifrit giving humanity fire. "This is getting weird."

A gateway opened before them; Light leapt in, and Noct jumped after her.

* * *

Manikins in small numbers were unthreatening foes, but still foes enough to glean bounty; crystal imitations of Golbez, Kuja, and Jecht were felled in a courtyard with a fountain topped by a phoenix, and power born of battle was earned from it.

Noctis, whose mind had been on Ifrit the whole time, spoke up once he was sure the area was empty. "Did you have a couple of gods who used to work well together, and then sort of... fell out?"

Lightning remembered how Lindzei had been created to help Pulse... and how Cocoon and Gran Pulse had waged war against each other. "Oh, yeah," she confirmed. "Fall out doesn't even begin to describe it."

The exit rift appeared, and they made their way through; once they were sure no champions were waiting to ambush them, Light made a query. "A god who turned against someone better than him, and all the world suffered for it?" She was thinking of Bhunivelze and his matricide.

Noct was thinking of Ifrit and the Astral War. "Yep." As they started walking, he realized there was one member of the Hexatheon he hadn't met yet... or even heard of being in Eos, physically. "A god who's above all the others and doesn't really exist in the same way as they do?"

"Uh-huh," Light confirmed, remembering how Bhunivelze had slept in crystal. "A god who's generous, and that generosity backfired in a really big way?" Etro giving Caius the Heart of Chaos had ended terribly for everyone involved.

"Oh yeah," Noct asserted, recalling how Ifrit's anger had started with Solheim turning on him. "...A god whose death resulted in catastrophe? Just from being dead?" Shiva's giant form dying had caused blizzards in a desert.

"Um..." The paradoxes on Gran Pulse had resulted from Etro being unable to prevent them, but she wasn't sure if that could really be considered 'death', considering how she had ended up in Valhalla in the first place. But if Caius hadn't... "The death could be reversible under the right circumstances," Light suggested.

Shiva's incarnation in Gentiana certainly qualified as coming back to life. "That counts," Noct conceded.

Light thought about her own time in Valhalla. "An assigned role from a god that hurts like hell in the long run?"

"Yeah," Noct conceded, thinking about his father's tenure as king, how much he had struggled... and how much peace it had brought while it lasted. "But it's worth it, in the end."

"Assuming nothing goes wrong," Light argued. Her chance to reunite with Serah had been snatched from her when Caius had killed off the goddess for good.

Noct nodded. "That's a good point." Niflheim's false treaty had left Regis with no way out. Trying to think of something more pleasant, he remembered the island off the shore of Caem, and what had happened last time he tried to go there. "A place out of reach of everything else, with a divine purpose?"

Valhalla was a land of the dead, surrounded by seas of chaos. "Big time," Light confirmed. Her mind was on that tide now. "A... a darkness that creates monsters?"

Something told Noct the darkness that was shortening nights on Eos had something to do with daemons. "Yeah." And now he was thinking about daemons. "A way for... for humans to become monsters?"

Light had a horrible flashback to her first run-in with Cie'th. "Yeah."

Quiet for a long moment; neither wanted to risk talking about gods any more, with the unpleasant memories that had been woken from it.

Lightning broke it. "Did you have to go through trouble to-"

"To ride a chocobo?" Noctis asked. "Yes."

**Author's Note:**

> You know, Draco told me I was gonna get "#Jossed" for writing a Dissidia NT fic while there were still story DLC going on, but I don't think I have yet. Kain was talking with Cloud and Noct about the big badass clash, but he only seemed surprised that they ended up allying with Spiritus' champions. I don't think that directly conflicts anything I wrote about with him, Ace, and Ramza. I mean, they're still using the wrong outfits, but something aesthetic like that doesn't change the fact that I'm still arguably canon.
> 
> "Hashtag sorry not sorry"  
> (Draco's trope snark: #RuleOfThree)


End file.
